Delaying Death
            As Gabriela Turns Forty

I have wanted daughters to fill mornings with lemony giggles—only young girls wear polka-dots well— I am missing polka dots like I am missing my twenties when I still flung coins into brass fountains wishing for the opposite of diminution plus kindness— Without daughters I concede to canyons of steel and black glass— No need for the modest but satisfying sway of a clothesline drawing waves against air— I would have pinned its flurries with items involving chiffon, ribbons and polka dots— And peach cotton nightgowns that would have flared when pale legs kicked at night whose membrane sometimes lurched to gasp forth the sound of a monster licking the window when it was only two lovers delaying death by borrowing my lawn—

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